


He Thinks Terrible Things

by themadmarchhare42



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Caring!Lister, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Intrusive Thoughts, Rimmer's mind isn't right, Rimmer/Lister friendship - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 14:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6011182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themadmarchhare42/pseuds/themadmarchhare42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An odd Headcanon of mind that Rimmer suffers intrusive thoughts, sprouted into this:</p><p>"He was crazy. His brain didn't work probably, it was broken. Yet another hurdle to jump, yet another way to fail. Yet another way to disappoint his family."</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Thinks Terrible Things

Rimmer's mind was particularly noisy tonight.

Not that he'd tell anyone of course. He'd learned to bottle the outward actions a long time ago, to hide them from his family.  
He remembered his father shouting at him to "stop twitching and wincing like an idiot! What is it, you have ants in your brain or something?"  
Not quite, but it often felt like that. He couldn't remember when they started, it hadn't been sudden. It had crept up on him at some point in his late childhood.  
_Images of people being torn apart, caught in gears and their skin-_  
__**Stop it !  
** Seeing himself with a knife striking over and over the people he knew closest in the world. His brothers lying in a bloody heap at his feet. Or himself being beaten over and over by both strangers and people he knew, then-  
**_ENOUGH! Please..._  
** It was enough to keep him reeling in terror for ages afterwards.

These weren't his thoughts, they were terrible, _horrible_ , things he'd never do or never want to do or to happen.  
He'd spend hours pacing his room, trying to pick apart the noise and the rushing panic in his brain; and once or twice he'd been reduced to panic attacks, which were always humiliating. He'd been locked in the basement for that more than once.  
"It's one thing I can't stand, it's crazy people," His father had growled at him "no son of mine will be crazy, are you boy?"  
"N-no sir" Arnold had sniffed, trying to shut out the horrific images of him shoving his father down the stairs, _imagine his bones snapping and legs splayed out-_ ** _No, leave me alone.  
_** He'd found out from one of the counsellors at Io House, under the guise of a science project, that they were called 'Intrusive Thoughts', often violent or sexual thoughts that weren't your own yet appeared in your mind regardless. It certainly helped him feel less of a monster.  
But it did confirm one thing:  
He was crazy. His brain didn't work probably, it was broken. Yet another hurdle to jump, yet another way to fail. Yet another way to disappoint his family.

He'd learned to deal with it, mainly through willpower and fear, but also by the occasional medication he'd managed to get from the school counsellors (not that his father knew, he made sure of that).  
  
When he was on Red Dwarf things hadn't let up. Just more faces to add to those he saw either dead or doing things, so numerous and disturbing he couldn't even count. Sometimes he couldn't sleep, pacing his room or wasting time tidying the room, or using hypnotic sleep recordings to help distract him enough to sleep. That was when he was at his calmest.  
It always got worse when he was stressed or angry, and it had only gotten worse when Lister had been assigned his new bunkmate.  
Like everyone, Rimmer didn't tell him. He'd just get into the arguements, yell and bicker with the other technician, then go off somewhere quiet to sort out the barrage of images and thoughts _of killing, maiming, torturing, r-_  
**_No nonononono.  
_** He shuddered as he sat up from the bucket, wiping off vomit from his mouth. Those were the worst. He'd never do that, ever and especially not to _LISTER_. The thought was enough to make him dry heave again.

When he'd become a hologram, it had carried over in his programming. An errored code in his personality.

He had spotted his counterpart on the low-dwarf, not that he'd mentioned it to anyone. That horrific outfit was enough to give him nightmares.  
However, what he saw wasn't him. He hated pain and seeing people in pain, he was a coward for gods sake! He'd never been highly sexed, as he'd said to Lister when they were marooned.  
No, that wasn't him. That was the _thing_ , the manifestation of those thoughts.

It was every time he'd seen the Cat in bloody pieces on the floor, every time he'd been reduced to a panic attack by the thoughts of gutting Lister in his sleep. Every image of every profane thing he could possibly perform, but would never actually do.  
He'd never admit to having them of course.  
They wouldn't understand, they'd assume he was capable, that he wanted to do it.  
They'd never leave him switched on.

That night though, after getting the normal Dwarf back again, Lister hadn't let up on the teasing. The profane jokes over the stocking suspenders and feathers, not to mention the Holowhip (which had been part of a lot of the more violent intrusive thoughts)  
On the forth BDSM/torture joke he'd torn himself from the room and down to one of the larger storage lockers, where he'd finally collapsed into yet another attack, a cold flush washing down his spine as the terror hit him again.  
  
Images of his low torturing all of them, himself included at times, barraged his head.  
The screams and moans and sobs ricocheting round his skull until he realised the sound of crying was coming from his own mouth.  
After twenty minutes he'd calmed down, managing to stop his shaking enough to stand up. Sucking up the last of the emotion back into it's bottle, he stepped out of the locker and headed back to the sleeping quarters.

They'd still be drinking til the early hours, enough time for him to have pulled himself together enough to get to sleep-

-That thought was abruptly shattered when he saw Lister sitting on his bunk expectantly.

Rimmer froze, then tried to turn away (maybe he could sleep in another room) but Lister had already seen him.  
"Rimmer." Lister called. Rimmer stopped, wincing. "Rimmer, what's wrong man?"  
Another image of Lister dead, _his head split open with a shard of rusted metal in his hands-_    
"Except you trying to kill us?" Rimmer quirked an eyebrow, pushing down the images. He wasn't planning on letting Lister forget the spine implant any time soon.  
"You know what I mean, Rimmer. I was just joking around back there, you know that. None of those were really us... I don't think so anyway..."  
"No." Rimmer sighed, trudging over and sinking onto his bunk. "I don't know if that was us. That just wasn't _me_..."  
"What?"  
"That wasn't me... It was part of my brain, but it's not _me_."  
"I'm not following you," Lister frowned.  
"I saw my low, when I was hiding. I heard him say 'he thinks terrible things'. Do you know what he meant?"  
"Well no," Lister admitted "Why? What did he mean?"

Rimmer told him. Everything.

Lister was silent for awhile. Rimmer even began to anticipate the reaction, the teasing, the _shunning_ until Lister asked quietly:  
"How long?"  
"Huh?" Rimmer blinked.  
"How long have you had this?"  
"...since I was a child," Rimmer admitted.  
"And you never told me?"  
This took Rimmer by surprise.  
"What?"  
"You were suffering this all this time and you never said a thing?"  
"You would've shut me off," Rimmer waved him off.  
"What? Like delete you just because your brain doesn't work properly?" Lister asked, frowning. _How could Rimmer possibly...?_  
"I don't know," Rimmer sighed into his hands "It's been so long I just assumed I can deal with it on my own."  
"So every time you paced in the night, went off on your own when you got stressed..."  
"That was them, yes," Rimmer nodded.  
"Smeg, man... You should have said something."  
"What is it you could have done?" Rimmer frowned, genuinely confused.  
"Help!" Lister exclaimed "I could help!"  
"I don't think there's much you can do," Rimmer told him  
"I could be there for you. My cousin had something like this, and he always said he found it easier with someone else there. It helped him get out of his brain, to distract him."  
Rimmer breathed for a while  
"And anyway, I've seen the inside of your head. I can't even begin to imagine what other stuff's in there..."  
Rimmer scoffed "You have no idea..."

Lister was silent for a while, and Rimmer had begun to assume the conversation was over, when Lister spoke up again:  
"I don't suppose you could, like, externalise it a bit? So I know when to help?"  
"I...I don't know." Rimmer floundered "I've trained myself to- my father..."  
"Yeah, well he's not here anymore." Lister told him. "If you need help, you let me know alright?"  
Rimmer nodded curtly, but he seemed a lot more relaxed than before, a slight embarrassed smile in his eyes.  
"Good, now come on ya smeg head," Lister said, jumping up from the bunk "We got the full set of new sitcoms in the last mail pod, and they're not gonna watch themselves."

Rimmer's breath hitched as images of him tearing off Lister's skin like a glove, turning slightly and whimpering. It was the middle of the night, and Rimmer hadn't fallen asleep yet, his turbulant mind refusing to allow him to drift off.  
He had to get out of bed and pick up that book, to make it stop. It was the only way to _make it stop_.  
He shifted, about to launch himself, when he heard a voice from the bunk above him.  
"Lie down, Rimmer. It'll pass," Lister's voice came from above. Rimmer froze; he hadn't realised that Lister was still awake. However, Rimmer reluctantly placed his head back on the pillow and sucked in a breath.  
"What's your favourite star?" Lister asked from the darkness  
"Uh..." Rimmer flickered between the thought and he question "Orion's sword?"  
"Ok, why is it your favourite?"  
"Because..." Rimmer wrenched his mind from the thought, trying to get his turbulent mind to focus properly on the decision.  
"...Because it's actually a nebulae, with beautiful orange and blue swirls of gas and dust..." Rimmer relaxed slightly, the thought of the scene overtaking the thought slowly  
"My favourites Sol," Lister told him  
"Why?" Rimmer hummed  
"It's home, isn't it?"  
"I suppose so."  
"Hey, do you think it's still a red giant? I heard the sun was going to expand and swallow the Earth. Do you think three million years is long enough?"  
"Doubt it. It takes forever to get anything done in this universe." Rimmer smirked.  
His heart had stopped hammering now, the thought now just a nightmare of the past. There was still a niggle at the back of his mind, but it'd fade soon enough. A while later and the conversation had petered off, leaving the two in silence.  
"Thanks, Lister." Rimmer said "You're welcome. Just tell me next time, alright? I don't like you to suffer on your own. That's my job!"  
"Ha. ha. ha." Rimmer rolled his eyes, but smiled anyway.

Maybe overtime it would help, who knows? And maybe Lister was right about the boyz from the dwarf:  
_You guys would risk your life for **me**?  
__Of course, you're part of the crew!_

Maybe things could get better after all...

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my wonderful world of self-projection!
> 
> On a serious note, Intrusive thoughts are a terrible thing and very few characters are canonically diagnosed with it, and so we have to make do with headcanons and projections onto characters!
> 
> Yeah, I don't really take this headcanon that seriously (as it is FULL of holes!) and it was really just an excuse for some Red Dwarf Hurt/Comfort, but then my inner ANGST took over!


End file.
